Saturday, February 20, 2010

Dining in with Shrimp Pasta and Breakfast Quiche

Dining out on Valentines is not my idea of a romantic night. I eat out a lot on weekdays so on weekends, I prefer to stay away from the restaurant crowds. Also, my expectations are pretty high for food, service and ambiance so it would be a culinary letdown to celebrate VD at a restaurant that forces an overpriced prix fixe menu on you. It's more fun to stay in and cook up some pasta. The key is to buy or make fresh pasta. It makes a big difference.

I love one-pot-cooking. Throw in some garlic, shallots, shrimp and mushrooms into a saucepan and saute with salt, pepper, paprika, cumin and freshly squeezed lemon juice. When the mushrooms are soft and the shrimp almost cooked, add cooked pasta to the pan.

Top the pasta with fresh Parmesan cheese and voila- a simple, delicious meal. P.S. they make great leftovers to take in to work for lunch.

Bottle of French Chardonnay to accompany the pasta.

The best part is waking up to an aromatic breakfast (specifically bacon related).

The quiche included onions, turkey bacon, mushrooms, broccoli and Gruyere cheese from Switzerland. The best part about quiches is that you can pretty much throw in your favorite ingredients or even leftovers such as chicken or crumbled sausage. The quiche was surprisingly rather light because we used skim milk over half-and-half. My favorite part was the buttery crust.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.Hand whip eggs, milk and flour in a medium mixing bowl.Saute onions, mushrooms and bacon in a saucepan. Combine with remaining ingredients and the egg/milk/flour mixture.Pour into an unbaked 9-inch, deep pie crust.Top with additional cheese.Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the top is golden brown.Let the quiche sit until the center settles (about 10-15 minutes) before serving.

1 comment:

Hear hear on avoiding the VD prixe fix meu trap! I love quiches - have recently become obsessed with them actually! The one at Little Next Door is really good if you don't feel like cooking one yourself. Love the little bits of ham in there!